


To Take A Break

by Haicrescendo



Series: What We’re Given [3]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: And Worries, Gen, and he doesn’t realize that that shit is Not Acceptable, and very loud noise, baby zuko is full of angst, he’ll understand one day but that day is not today, inescapable fiber arts, like this fucking kid has literally had his education sabotaged, mentions of abuse by authority figures, oops it’s definitely child abuse, second thoughts on treason but no regrets, their commander is a casually endearing little monster and they will fight you over him, zuko doesn’t realize that uncle has handpicked his crew for sass and loyalty, zuko stress felts EVERYTHING, zuko’s crew has Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2019-11-16
Packaged: 2021-02-07 09:40:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,015
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21455932
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Haicrescendo/pseuds/Haicrescendo
Summary: Zuko’s fire is broken: is it the treason or is it the anxiety? Uncle takes steps to rectify this.Or,The Knitterlude nobody asked for.
Relationships: Iroh & Zuko (Avatar), Zuko & Zuko's Crew (Avatar)
Series: What We’re Given [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1537510
Comments: 522
Kudos: 7591
Collections: Finished111, avataner





	To Take A Break

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome back! Please leave a comment if you enjoyed this, and be sure to subscribe to the series for updates!
> 
> Note: this is set between To Take Care and To Take Pride.

* * *

Zuko slams his fist into the wall and winces when it dents.

It also melts slightly, and he pulls his hand back. Blows on it until it cools.

Meditation has been going...poorly. To say the least. No amount of deep breathing or calming tea or  _ listen to the soothing sounds of the ocean, Nephew,  _ or talking about his  _ feelings _ have managed to improve matters, much to Uncle’s chagrin. Much to Lieutenant Jee’s too, as he’s been the reluctant fixer of most of the things that Zuko has accidentally burnt or melted.

Fire wants to move and it wants to burn. It’s the very first thing that any firebender learns, because in order to bend properly, one needs to learn how to be still. Every firebender, even Father and Azuka, meditates, and ever since Zuko got his bandages off, it’s been an issue.

The closest he’s come to actual calm has been with Uncle controlling a tiny flame in his hands, and only little babies with no self control have to do it like that. He can’t ask Uncle to do that  _ all the time _ . He doesn’t know what’s wrong with him.

People of fire are supposed to have resolve. Maybe that’s where Zuko’s gone wrong and that’s why his fire’s broken. He’s disobeyed the Fire Lord, disobeyed his  _ father _ , and now his fire’s broken. Zuko’s been told what he needs to do to  _ fix this and go home _ , but…

He can’t.

The Avatar’s got to be an old man by now. It’s been a hundred years since anyone saw him, but what Zuko knows is this:

He’s the last one.

If Zuko finds the Avatar and drags him back home to Father, that’s it. He’ll definitely die. No more Avatar.

No more Air Nomads.

He can’t  _ do it _ .

And it’s treason to disobey like that, even if it’s disobeying by not doing anything. All Zuko has to do is bring home the Avatar. Father may be hard and rigid, but he sent Zuko out to do this because he wants Zuko to be  _ better _ . He’s got to believe in him at least a little if he’s been given this much of a chance and not just...told not to come back, ever.

Right?

Zuko drops his face into his hands and resists the urge to scream into them.

He’s already made his decision, he tells himself. That his phoenix tail’s been shorn off to nothing and an even layer of fuzzy dark hair is starting to come back in is evidence of that. Uncle even did it with him, even though he didn’t have to. So why does he still hurt?

Zuko is  _ nothing _ . Not a prince anymore and if he did go back to the Fire Nation, none of his countrymen would be allowed to claim him. He’s barely even a firebender, now. The  _ Wani _ ’s crew only listens to him out of respect for Uncle Iroh, he’s sure. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s been indulged.

All Zuko can think of sometimes are all those tiny skeletons. They show up when he sleeps, sometimes, reaching for him and crying, begging, asking  _ why did you do that _ ?, and then they turn into Father, or  _ Mom _ , and it becomes a whole different kind of nightmare. When that happens, all he can do is find somewhere he can curl up and hide until morning comes or he remembers how to breathe again.

The bison help.

There’s a large, uninhabited island set in the southern cradle between the Fire Nation’s islands, the Earth Kingdom, and the territory that used to belong to the Air Nomads. It’s deeply forested but they’ve already managed to clear out a good amount from the middle to give the western bison space. They’ve built a barn to shelter them. It’s inhospitable for people and therefore unclaimed by any nation, but perfect for hiding something you don’t want the wrong people finding.

Some of the crew even  _ wanted _ to go and work on it and help make it better, which amazes him.

Zuko  _ has _ resolve. He’s made his choice.

He’s just afraid that he’s made the wrong one, and he’ll never be able to use his fire right again.

He’s interrupted from his thinking (not  _ brooding _ , Uncle) by a soft knock on the door.

“Yes?”

One of the helmsmen (Sho?) cracks the door and pokes his head in.

“Your uncle would like to see you on the deck, sir. He says that it’s important.”

Zuko stops staring at the dent he’s made in the wall and nods, pushing past Sho with a mumbled something about  _ back to your business _ or whatever indulged commanders are supposed to say to their subordinates, down the hall, up the stairs, and onto the deck. Uncle is there and waiting for him, with Navigator Teruko at his side. Between them is a huge bag of…

Fur?

“Ah, Prince Zuko!” Uncle exclaims with cheer, “You came quickly!”

“You said you needed to see me,” Zuko grumbles with a frown. If it’s a surprise, maybe next time he’ll take longer, just to be contrary. 

“And so I did!” Uncle waves him over and sits right down on the metal deck. He’s had a set of chairs brought out and gestures for both him and Teruko to sit. She does, somewhat reluctantly, while also somehow looking annoyed. Zuko does as well, burying his hands in his lap so no one looking could see the reddened scrapes on his knuckles.

“What’s this about?”

“Furthering your education,” Uncle replies. “Your heart is unbalanced and your fire is unbalanced with it. It’s a dangerous state to exist in, my nephew. You will not get better if you cannot find  _ calm _ .”

Zuko opens his mouth to protest but Teruko beats him to it. She’s stern and rarely speaks without yelling, and Zuko is both slightly frightened of and also admiring of her for it.

“I think I can help you, sir.”

That draws him right out of his temper.

“...how?” He asks, finally. He’ll try about anything at this point, even if it means that Uncle clearly went around airing out his dirty laundry to whoever might listen to him. Teruko reaches into the bag and pulls out a good sized handful of fluff. It’s been washed and carded, the white and brown swirling together like a chocolate storm cloud. Out of her pocket, she removes something from her pocket.

A top?

“My folks keep sheeppigs on their farm,” she says, “Every few seasons, they need shearing, and we turn the wool into yarn, which gets turned into clothes and fabric, sir. Which I’m sure you knew.”

He did not.

“That’s called a drop spindle,” she continues, “For the big stuff you’d really want a spinning wheel but this might be better for you. The bison shed a ridiculous amount and it’d be a shame to let it go to waste.”

Zuko’s scepticism shows all over his face, because Teruko sighs and pinches a bit of carded fluff, wraps it around the spindle, gives it a spin, lets it drop. As it spins and travels up and down with the tension, she pulls from the little pile and the string gets longer. Every time it gets long enough to almost touch the ground, she wraps it around the base of the spindle and keeps going.

“This makes what we call a single— later, if you want, you could ply it with another single to make a thicker, stronger yarn. You always want to spin the same batch the same direction,” she tells him, “And try not to overtwist or undertwist, otherwise your yarn’s either going to bunch up or fall apart. Having something productive to do with your hands might help you settle, sir.”

That looked...really complicated. Teruko makes it look  _ easy  _ but he knows he’ll have trouble with it because he has trouble with most everything people try to teach him. Nevertheless, he takes the spindle when she hands it to him. It’s very…even. Very perfect.

He’s definitely going to fuck it up.

Zuko does fuck it up. He fucks it up over and over again until the heat of his hands and his frustration felts the fiber beyond repair and there’s no other option but to start over. He waits for the inevitable  _ correction _ , instinctively, but it never comes. Uncle just watches him calmly, and Teruko simply breaks off the ruined fiber and shows him how to start again with more fur out of the bag.

He fucks up again, starts over again, manages to spin a tiny bit more each time than he did before until the handful of fluff he’d been holding is gone, the sun’s beginning to go down, and the bottom of the spindle is thick and heavy with twisted yarn. 

It’s uneven and slubby and looks nothing like the perfect single that Teruko had started with. She shows him how to slide the yarn off the spindle and wrap it around his knees to twist it into a small hank, puts it into his hands.

Zuko stares at it, torn between inadequacy and a strange sort of pride.

“You did really well, sir,” Teruko tells him gruffly, “I set the lot on fire the first time I tried to spin. I was also seven but, you know.” She shrugs. “You have the right touch for it.”

Zuko’s never told that he’s had the right touch for  _ anything _ and all of a sudden he finds that his throat’s gone and closed off his words. He can’t speak at all, just stares at the brown and white hank in his hands like it’s going to disappear if he looks away.

He  _ made _ that.

And it was annoying and frustrating beyond belief and every time he managed to felt it again, he’d wanted to shout about it and he was sure that it would light, just like everything else he’s gotten mad at these past few weeks. But it hadn’t.

The yarn is soft and squishy, and squeezing it feels like petting Mochi.

Zuko finds that he likes it.

Uncle says something to Teruko that he doesn’t hear, and she gets up and leaves them, but not without a deeply unprofessional pat to Zuko’s shoulder. He can forgive it this time, because he still can’t seem to make words happen.

Zuko slides down off the chair and drops onto the deck at Uncle Iroh’s encouragement. Sits next to him, breathes deeply.

“How do you feel?”

Zuko couldn’t say how many times that Uncle’s asked him that since they left the caldera.  _ So  _ many times, and every time he’s managed to say that he was fine when he wasn’t. He hasn’t been fine  _ at all _ . Not even a little bit. Every time he’s been asked how he feels, he’s  _ lied _ .

His hands squeeze, gentle.

“...better, a little bit,” he says finally, and this time it’s truthful. Saying that he felt good would be a stretch but he feels steadier, like one strong wave won’t be enough to break his root. He sets the yarn down in his lap and rolls the spindle from palm to palm to palm. It has a nice weight and its comfortably warm from his hands.

Uncle smiles at him.

“Good, because when Navigator Teruko left, she seemed pleased by the prospect of teaching you how to knit.”

... _ what _ ?

* * *

Zuko had thought that spinning was hard and tedious and frustrating. He would like to go back in time and tell the him of the past that he had  _ no idea _ what he was talking about.

Knitting is a hellscape and Teruko is borderline tyrannical, and suddenly has miraculously little to do that isn’t harassing Zuko under Uncle’s careful watch. 

Knitting is really hard and Zuko’s  _ really bad _ at it.

He keeps waiting for Teruko to get sick of fixing his mistakes, to slip out of her gruff but endlessly patient teaching demeanor to start yelling and screaming at him like his old firebending instructors, maybe assign corrective discipline until he gets it right...but she never does. At worst, she grumbles at him, shows him where he messed up (which is usually  _ everywhere _ ), and helps him fix it.

It’s very, very weird.

Slowly, though, he gets faster and his stitches get more straight and even, and it's still hard and annoying but now it’s hard and annoying in a good way. It’s not uncommon now to be able to find him on the deck, yarn in a bag and fussing with his stitches, and at first he doesn’t think anything of it as anything but a hobby to get him out of Uncle’s hair and to stop him from accidentally setting fires all over the ship until Zuko figures out how to get his bending back under control…

And then Uncle Iroh brings him a candle.

Zuko’s not in the position he normally takes to meditate, his eyes aren’t closed but staring daggers into his rows, he’s not focused on his fire or his breath, but the flame grows and shrinks with him anyway, easier than it ever did when he did it before.

“But...I’m not doing it  _ right _ ,” Zuko says. It’s not the way he’s supposed to do it, it’s not the way anybody is taught at home, and yet he takes to this easier than anything else, and it  _ hurts _ . You’re supposed to sit alone and cross-legged and you’re definitely supposed to have your eyes closed, and you’re supposed to sit  _ still.  _ Uncle settles down next to him and reaches out to gently take his project out of slackened fingers before he drops it.

“Maybe the other way is right for many people. It may have even been right for you in the past, but the past you is not the present. For all our fire’s movement, we can be a rigid people, Nephew. There is no shame in finding a better way for you.”

And Zuko  _ is _ ashamed. He can’t even deny it.

“That’s not...that’s not how—“

He can’t say it. Uncle is like...the best firebender Zuko knows, even better than Azula, probably even better than Father. Uncle doesn’t understand how hard people tried to teach him and it just never stuck the way it was supposed to, and Zuko can’t tell him about how he’d leave training sessions bleeding and burned  _ for his own good _ , because his instructors had Father’s blessing to do whatever they needed to do to make sure he learned. Uncle doesn’t know about that particular brand of shame and Zuko wants to keep it that way.

No need to give him any more reasons to be ashamed of him or worse,  _ pity _ him.

He swallows his words all the way down.

“Have you ever had fresh apple-granate?” Uncle asks. Zuko shakes his head. It’s a tropical Earth Kingdom fruit; he’s had it in festival treats during Summer matsuri (and usually sprinkled with chili-lime spice powder) but never fresh. Without missing a beat, Uncle pulls one out of his robe and rolls it between his hands. 

It’s round and a pleasant shade of pinky-yellow. 

“These fruits can be very expensive because they take a lot of care to open properly,” he says. Zuko narrows his eyes, smells a proverb coming. “If you try and take a bite, all you’ll get is pith and rind. If you try and cut it in half, you’ll slice open the seeds. Many people recommend doing inside a tub of water, and that’s a process all on its own. Most people would rather buy it already peeled and let their wallet suffer.”

Uncle Iroh hands the fruit to Zuko, then a sharp paring knife from the galley.

“It doesn’t have to be that hard if you think  _ around _ your problem.”

He gestures for Zuko to make shallow cuts around the fruit, just through the skin to make quarters, then directs him to pull them apart. The fruit pops open into Zuko’s hands; glossy pink and yellow arils sparkle like little jewels in the thick white rind. Uncle reaches out and takes one of the quarters, gently works several bits of fruit out of the rind, and pops then into his mouth with relish.

Zuko follows suit and startles when the arils pop between his teeth. The juice is sweet and tart and the seeds have an interesting crunch to them that he doesn't mind.

“If—“

“If you start talking about how people are like apple-granates, I’m leaving,” Zuko interrupts but keeps eating even as Uncle shakes his head and laughs.

* * *

Zuko’s made a hat.

It’s kind of uneven and weirdly slouchy in places, and he’d tried to do a pattern in the brown yarn against the white but it was  _ hard _ and made it bunch up in places where his floats pulled too tight. He’s pretty sure that his stitch counts are off, too, but it’s still pretty much a circle that closes on one end and will fit on Uncle’s head so it should fit on anybody else’s.

He’s nervous.

His stomach twists and his heart pounds, and Zuko shifts the hat to the crook of his elbow so that he can wipe his sweating palms on his thighs. He may be a disgraced, banished prince, but he still has  _ manners _ .

When someone teaches you a craft, your first product goes to your teacher. No matter what it is, no matter how bad, as long as it’s finished.

He’s been carrying it around for the last six hours trying to get over himself and just  _ find Teruko and get this over with,  _ and it’s not even like he hasn’t seen her. It’s just...he’s always busy and she’s always busy and if she laughs at him, he really doesn’t want anyone around for it.

Zuko breathes out, deep and steady. He can feel his fire more easily than he ever has, even before he left home, and he knows that he’s not just thanking her for teaching him a hobby. He’s so fucking scared that she’s going to  _ laugh _ . Or throw it away.

“Sir?”

Zuko stiffens and resists the urge to flee or just fling himself into the sea so he won’t have to worry about it.

“Navigator Teruko,” he blusters loudly and whips around, shoves the hat behind his back before anyone can see it.

“General Iroh said that you were looking for me, sir?” Teruko keeps her tone staunchly professional but she can’t erase the blatant curiosity off of her face. It’s obvious that  _ something  _ is eating at the noisy little prince, and it’s almost endearing to watch him squirm. Almost, because she remembers wanting to hang him from the watch tower by his boots if he asked her  _ one more time _ to make a note about how much roughage the bison were going to need and was she  _ sure _ that Min’s math was right, like the neurotic little shouty monster he is.

He screws up his face like he’s going to start yelling but instead he thrusts his hands out and shoves something soft and brown and white at her. 

It’s...a hat.

The unmarked side of Prince Zuko’s face goes red and he won’t look her in the eyes.

“I—I made it!” He says loudly and straightens his back like steel’s been poured in, like he’s just daring her to smirk at him or laugh. “It’s for you. As my teacher.” And then he bows to her, lower than he should for his station.

Oh, spirits, Teruko is  _ feeling things _ . Soft, warm, unacceptably sentimental things that are absolutely inappropriate for a marine such as herself to be feeling in regard to one’s (albeit very young) commanding officer. 

Zuko’s positive that Teruko is going to start laughing at him, but he can’t work out the look on her face right now, kind of like she’s swallowed a cactus and can’t get it out of her throat. She takes his offering and inspects it, and then proceeds to say absolutely  _ fucking nothing _ to the point that Zuko definitely wants to throw himself off the side of the boat and let the ocean take him away.

He does not do that.

Instead he just waits.

Teruko squeezes the hat in her hands and then bows in response. 

“Your efforts are well noted,” she recites the way that she’s supposed to even though the words come out strangled and choked, and then looks up, grins at him. “You’ve done  _ really well _ , sir. An excellent student.”

And Zuko goes red all the way down his collar, says nothing, and then stomps away as quickly as he can. Teruko watches him go.

She remembers General Iroh’s initial approach of her, working the docks of one of the island colonies after one too many demerits for disrespect of authority that had eventually lead to a dishonorable discharge. Going nowhere fast, they both knew, and she’d jumped at the chance to be on a ship again, even if it was the ship of the disgraced crown prince. He had no issues with the marks on her record, he’d said, but that what he valued was  _ loyalty.  _

She’d already known it was going to be a shitshow when she’d accepted his offer and terms, but it couldn’t have prepared her for what it would actually be like to take orders from a thirteen year old kid.

She hadn’t thought that much about it until he’d come to find her again, his worries plain on his face about the state of his nephew.

He’d asked her to teach him, politely but with enough veiled threats about  _ appropriate conduct  _ and  _ reasonable expectations  _ that she’d looked up, incredulous, and demanded to know who the hell would dare abuse the crown prince of an entire nation. General Iroh’s face had gone stormy and quietly furious and he said nothing, but he didn’t have to.

Only one person could endorse treatment like that. Teruko remembers fighting back the wave of fury that someone would do that to a kid, any kid, but especially  _ that _ kid. The fucking  _ audacity _ .

Teruko had kicked fire over the edge of  _ The Wani _ in response and for the first time, the General has looked pleased, like she’d passed some sort of test.

Once she starts teaching Prince Zuko, she can see exactly what he was worried about. The kid is terrified of failure and every time he messes up he flinches, despite the fact that his uncle is  _ right there _ . That’s definitely why General Iroh sticks around for so long, sipping tea and  _ watching _ , and for a while Teruko thinks it’s to make sure she stays in line but eventually realizes that it’s to help Prince Zuko feel safe with someone supposed to instruct him.

And it’s enraging because the kid is a really good student. He tries  _ really fucking hard _ and even when he’s a brat and loses his temper he hits things, not people, and he wants to please and he wants to learn. That’s what kills her, when it comes down to it. Any instructor worth a damn knows that there are things more valuable than innate skill, and Teruko tries her best to foster those things in Prince Zuko. 

He doesn’t know what to do with positive reinforcement or encouragement but Teruko keeps grouching them at him anyway in the hopes that they’ll stick. She’s not a warm and fuzzy, friendly kind of person, but you’d have to be a complete fucking monster to mess up a kid like that.

Shit, man.

Teruko looks down at the hat she’s holding in her hands. It’s messy and uneven and some of that is in Prince Zuko’s stitches and some of that is that his yarn is handspun and inexperienced and messy, and clearly he was going for a color pattern at some point but gave up about halfway through. It’s  _ cute _ .

So she shoves the hat right on her head and goes about her business, and if anyone wants to tease her about it, they keep it to themselves.

* * *


End file.
